Data contracts: What are they and why do they matter?

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

Thoughtworks

Careers, Business, 907234, Technology

4.7 • 53 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2024

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Data contracts are a bit like APIs for data — they make it possible to interface with data in a way that ensures the transfer of data from one place to another is stable and reliable. This is particularly important for building more reliable data-driven applications.

To discuss data contracts, host Lilly Ryan is joined on the Technology Podcast by Andrew Jones, the creator of the data contract concept (in 2021) and author of Driving Data Quality with Data Contracts (2023), and Thoughtworker Ryan Collingwood who is currently writing their own book on data contracts due to be published in 2025. Andrew and Ryan offer their perspectives on the topic, explaining the origins and motivation for the idea and outlining how they can be used in practice.

You can find Andrew’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Driving-Data-Quality-Contracts-comprehensive/dp/1837635005

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the ThoughtWorks Technology podcast.
0:11.4	My name is Lily Ryan.
0:12.9	I'm one of your regular hosts, and I am speaking to you from Melbourne, Australia.
0:17.2	In today's conversation, I'm joined by Ryan Collingwood and Andrew Jones.
0:21.6	Ryan is a data strategist at ThoughtWorks and is currently writing a book on data contracts
0:25.6	that will be out in, what, 2025, Ryan?
0:28.6	Yeah, Q1, 2025. Fingers crossed.
0:31.6	Wonderful.
0:33.6	And Andrew is the author of Driving Quality with Data Contracts, which was published in 2023.
0:40.0	Andrew, would you mind introducing yourself?
0:42.4	Yeah, sure.
0:43.0	Yeah, hi, I'm Andrew.
0:44.6	I'm a independent date consultant, and I help organisations build data platforms that reduce
0:49.7	risk and drive revenue.
0:51.4	I've been doing that for a little while now, which is why I end up coming up with day contracts a few years ago and writing that book that you mentioned. That's wonderful.
0:58.4	And as you may have guessed, we are here today to talk about data contracts. This is a topic
1:03.6	that has been kicking around for quite some time and has recently, I think, come through quite
1:09.2	strongly in the way that we're all focusing on data
1:12.2	and a lot of our practices. So to talk about it today and to get to terms with what data
1:18.0	contracts are, where they fit into the software delivery lifecycle and all of that kind of stuff,
1:22.9	Ryan and Andrew are going to be our expert guides. And to kick us off, what is a data contract?
1:29.7	Yeah, sure. I think the easiest way to think about it, particularly if you're not familiar
	...

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